Non-religious Theism

[Metalogos]

I find several things wrong with the prime mover argument.

Firstly, as someone that subscribes to philosophical skepticism, I think pure reasoning without empirical evidence is fruitless and leads us no closer to the truth.

Secondly, the prime mover argument fails as a hypothesis due to its lack of explanatory and predictive power. We gain no further understanding from it, as all it seeks to do is justify the existence of the prime mover without showing what consequences that would have on reality or what we should expect to see because of that.

Thirdly, there seems to be absolutely no support that the "first cause" of the universe should necessarily be a conscious being. Its supporters just try to sneak that in with arguments that boil down to nothing more than "I think it's a sentient entity, because I think the universe had to have been designed by something sentient."

The prime mover argument appears to be nothing more than people attempting to justify preconceived beliefs, rather than build a philosophically valid worldview from the ground up.

To answer the first objection about the fruitlessness of engaging in pure reasoning without having any kind of empirical evidence to support such reasoning, in general, I would agree with you. On the other hand, I do not regard thinking about the origins of the universe to be an act of pure reasoning. On the contrary, it is a very natural, everyday kind of thinking that leads one to ask, "Where did all this stuff come from?" or "What caused all of this stuff to exist in the way that it exists?" It is just wanting to know and understand the very real world around us that has lead to all the scientific discoveries that underpin our modern societies and without which we would find life very difficult to lead.

In rebuttal to the second objection about the lack of explanatory or predictive power in the prime mover argument, I would say that it is just this argument that does indeed explain the very important and fundamental question of how things got started in this universe.
Empirical evidence shows that everything is in motion. A very natural question is "What set things in motion?" Empirical evidence shows that everything that moves has had an action performed on it by a preceding agent. True in the macrocosm. True in the microcosm. If everything requires a preceding agent to set it into motion, logically, there must have been a moment in time when there was a movement that we can consider the prime movement that was the result of a Prime mover, an initial agent taking that first move.
This is a very logical, natural way to think. It is not a question of metaphysics. It is a question of natural physics. What causes a ball to fly through the air when someone hits it with a bat? There are all kinds of detailed descriptions concerning the physics and mathematics of things in motion we can give as to why the ball moves but they will essentially boil down to an answer like, "Well, when John hit it with his bat, he applied force to the bat that in turn applied force to the ball and since the ball was free to move and had a much smaller mass than the bat, it was propelled through air." Every place we look, we see the world in motion and every time we investigate the cause behind those various instances of things in motion, we discover that there was a preceding cause.

The prime mover argument, the way I would state it, says that since we can see that everything in the universe is in motion and since we know that everything that is in motion has had a preceding cause, there must have been an initial cause, an initial movement.
Movements come about by agents. Not all agents are equal nor are they all sentient beings but considering that the universe displays wisdom and order in all its manifestations, it is logical to conclude that wisdom and order, as opposed to insensible chaos are natural attributes of the initial agent or Prime Mover.
That the eventual effect of the initial movement set in motion by the Prime Mover results, over time, in sentient beings that are capable of self contemplation and selfless love, namely, ourselves, it is certainly natural to think that such attributes could be attributed to the one that set this universe into motion in the first place. Since this initial agent would have to be one that existed, self-contained, before the initial movement that started the universe to come into existence, it would have to be an agent that existed before time or beyond time or eternally. An eternal, self-contained, self aware agent is the kind of being many cultures past and present would call a god or God or a deity or the Deity.
We have therefore, with this argument an explanation for the empirical evidence that everything is in motion and that every motion was begat by a preceding motion regressively until we reach the moment in time when the first motion occurred. We name that now the Big Bang. This argument gives a satisfactory explanation sans detailed descriptions as to why that first motion occurred, namely that the Prime Mover caused it to occur. This argument does have explanatory power.

As for predictive power, well, what kind of predictions would you expect or not expect for it to have? I would expect that it would predict that there would be no movement and therefore no matter prior to the initial movement. I wouldn't expect it to predict what will happen after that first movement. We are not talking about a hypothetical law of nature here so I'm not sure why you bring up this point about predictability. A hypothetical law would need to be able to predict what would happen according to the principles of the law but that is not the case here.

I don't have any preconceived beliefs about this question of origin. I am not religious in any way. My views are open. I would be very willing to change my position from theist to atheist if I was given a rational and plausible alternative argument that would account for the origin of this universe and the accompanying natural laws that we can observe.

I hope I have adequately addressed your concerns, sir. Thank you for your patience and consideration.